JOUVANCY, JOSEPH de. – Jesuit, philologist, educationalist, and historian, born in Paris on 14 September 1643, died in Rome on 29 May 1719. He taught Latin and Greek literature for many years at the Colleges of Compiègne, Caen, La Flèche, and Paris, until in 1699 he was summoned to Rome to continue the Historia Societatis Iesu, begun by Fr. Niccolò Orlandini, to which he devoted himself until his death.
The fruit of assiduous study and of long teaching according to the prescriptions of the Ratio studiorum was an exquisite command of classical Latin, in which he composed his works: several tragedies, performed by the pupils; editions of Latin classics with commentaries for schools; the Satire of Juvenal and Persius, the Commedia of Terence, the Odi and the Arte poetica of Horace, the Epigrammi of Martial, the Metamorfosi of Ovid, Cicero’s De officiis, Cato maior, and Luelius; Latin translations of various French works; speeches and panegyrics. The Novus apparatus Graeco-Latinus cum interpretatione Gallica (Paris 1681) went through numerous editions. His Historiae Societatis Iesu Pars V, covering the years 1561 to 1616 (Rome 1710), was prohibited by the Parliament of Paris in 1715 on account of certain judgments contrary to the absolutism adopted by the Bourbons, and in 1722 was placed on the Index (decree of 29 July) because of certain passages concerning the Chinese rites that were contrary to the papal decree De ritibus sineuibus, « quibus deletis, liber permittitur ». The Pars VI, extending to 1645, remained unpublished and was taken up by G. C. Cordara, who used it for the period 1617–32.
In pedagogy, particular importance attaches to his De ratione discendi et docendi (Paris 1691; subsequently, after careful examination, Florence 1703), which served as the official textbook for all Jesuit professors. It is the work of an expert, who lavishes upon it the treasures of his learning and his lively enthusiasm for the school.